Naval ensign and jack (1790-1794)

Official prescription

The naval jack - the first Ticolore - and its attendant flags
were established (with the assent of the King) by a Decree of the
National Assembly dated 24 October 1790, and exact specifications
were prepared by the Royal Printers and issued by Département de
la Marine.
These show that the jack had an outer border, blue and the hoist and
red at the fly, with a width of 3/60 the flag. This surrounded a
narrow white border of 1/60 the flag which in turn surrounded the
tricolour proper with a width of 52/60 and stripes in the proportions
of red 27, white 28 and blue 27.
The ensign was white with the jack as specified above forming a
canton of one-quarter the flag, whilst it also appeared at the head
of the both a broad and commissioning pendants (whose tails were, of
course, white).
Whether actual flags were prepared according to these
specifications in such a time of upheaval is, of course, a matter of
debate, however, it is good to know what they should have looked
like.

Christopher Southworth, 22 January 2003

Barraclough & Crampton [c2b81] erroneously claim that the naval ensign, correctly described, was "also used as the jack".

Santiago Dotor, 5 January 2000

The castle of Emperi in Salon-de-Provence houses an important army museum. Among the historical flags shown in the museum, one, dated 26 September 1791, is quite similar to the naval ensign and jack described above, but:
- The flag clearly shows a white cross over white, limited by lines and a
vegetal circle upon the center of the cross;
- There is a full tricolor total border, blue at the upper left and lower right, red at the upper right and lower left, white in the middle;
- In the canton, there is a flag horizontally divided blue-white-red

Philippe Lacroix, 3 November 2003

Erroneous rendition

Smith's erroneous rendition of the naval ensign (left) and of the jack (right) - Images by Ivan Sache, 29 April 2010

According to the illustrations of the ensign and jack in Smith (p.
135) [smi75c], the outer border was
solid red on the flyward half and a blue-outlined white border on the
hoist half (blue-outlined only on inner and outer edges, not outlined
where it adjoined the red).

Ned Smith, 7 January 2000

This is one of a few documented errors in Smith's opus. The
white-outlined-blue shown in this flag is correctly solid blue. The Flag Bulletin[tfb]
printed a full listing of the errors in the book.

Dave Martucci, 8 January 2000

National flag (1794)

Flag of France - Image by Željko Heimer, 22 September 2001

The National Convention adopted the Tricolore as the national flag on 27 Pluviose of the Year II (15 February 1794). The Decree says:

II. The national flag shall be formed of the three national
colours, set in three equal stripes, vertically disposed so that the
blue is attached to the staff of the flag, the white in the
middle, and the red flying in the air.
III. The jack and the daily ensign shall be formed in the same way,
observing the size proportions established by custom.
IV. The commissioning pennant shall also be formed of the three
colours, with one-fifth blue, one-fifth white, and three-fifths
red.

Armand Noël du Payrat, 4 February 1998

The definitive standardization of the
Tricolore was achieved in 1812 only; several
geometrical blue-white-red designs were in use before.
Some iconographical sources show a red liberty cap in the white
stripe, but there is no evidence that such flags ever existed in the cloth.

Ivan Sache, 17 October 2000

The red flag on the Champ-de-Mars, 1791

In July 1791, King Louis XVI and the Royal family attempted to
flee France, dressed as ordinary people. They were arrested in
Varennes, on their way to Germany. It is often said that the son of
the post house's owner recognized the king after a coin. Other said
that the royal princesses were recognized because they were not able
to walk correctly without a servant to assist them. Betrayal might be
a more rational explanation.
The king was brought back to Paris. A "Republican petition"
requiring the overthrowing the king was deposed on Champ-de-Mars,
where the Fête de la Fédération had been
celebrated on 14 July 1790.
A lot of people gathered to sign the petition. On 17 July, when the
meeting turned into a riot, the Mayor of Paris, Bailly, ordered to
hoist the red flag, which meant at that time that the mob should
disperse. The National Guards shot without warning. More than 50
rioters were killed and immediatly considered as the first martyres
of the Revolution. The red flag, "shed with the martyrs' blood"
became the symbol of the Revolution by a weird inversion of its
initial symbolism.

The oldest flag from the Revolution period?

A flag believed to be "the oldest flag from the French Revolution" was
found on 25 June 2011 in Quintigny, a small municipality (223
inhabitants) located in the department of Jura, Region Franche-Comté (Le Progrès, 3 July 2011).
The flag was found by Yves Moine, the Mayor of Quintigny, in the attic
of the Town Hall, among other flags, drums and old weapons, all
embedded in a huge layer of dust (Le Progrès, 10 July 2011; La Croix, 11 July 2011; Le Parisien, 11 July 2011).

The interest for this specific flag was elicited by an article published on 11 February 2010 by André Besson in the local newspaper
La Voix du Jura. Besson reported that the local erudite Xavier
Clavier (1892-1983) had explained him in the 1950s that the oldest
French revolutionary flag originates from Quintigny. The flag would
have been designed in the beginning of 1790 for the cantonal militia
raised to protect the villages from the bands of rascals that scoured
the region, taking advantage of the political unrest.
Clavier described the flag as a "modest flag" of the size of a
regimental colour, red on the one side and golden yellow on the other,
attached to a black staff and inscribed with the writing "VALEUR ET
BONNE FOI, DIEU ET LA PATRIE" (Value and Good Faith, God and
Fatherland).
Still according to Clavier, the flag was used for the first time in
Paris on 14 July 1790, carried by the militia of Quintigny and Ruffey-
sur-Seille during the Fête de la Fédération. Doomed to destruction during the Reign of Terror period because it was not Tricolore, the flag was hidden by a local Republican. It showed up again only in
1813, when the "Marie-Louise" soldiers enrolled for Napoléon's last
campaign paraded with the flag in the neighbouring town of Bletterans.
Two years later, the flag was used in Lons-le-Saunier during the funeral of General Lecourbe (1759-1815), who commanded the Ruffey-sur- Seille volunteers in 1789. Hidden once again during the Bourbon Restoration, the flag was hoisted on the top of the Tree of Liberty erected on 3 March 1848 to celebrate the proclamation of the Second Republic. The whereabouts of the flag had been lost since then, until
the finding by the Mayor.

The flag found by the Mayor matches quite well the description made by
Clavier. The flag is, on one side, red with the writing "VALEUR ET
BONNE FOI" and, on the other side, white with the writing "DIEU ET LA
PATRIE".
The Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs (DRAC) and the General
Council of Jura commissioned Jean-François Ryon, Curator of Antiques
and Artworks for the department of Jura, for a first expertise of the
flag. The shape of the hand-made nails, the style of embroidery and
the writing were deemed compatible with a flag made in 1790.
Specifically, the mottos reflect the ideals of the time, inspired by
both the Enlightenment and the Bible; the religious references were
prohibited only during after the establishment of the Reign of Terror.
The issue of the registration of the flag as an historical monument
was soon raised. The ad hoc Commission of the Department of Jura
decided on 13 July 2011 to postpone the registration, requiring a more
comprehensive expertise of the flag. Some members of the Commission
argued that the mottos could refer to the Bourbon Restoration, as well.
The cost of the expertise being quite high (8,000 €), the involved
bodies had not agree yet on the sharing of the cost of the operation
one year after the finding. The flag was briefly (30') shown to the
public in Quintigny on 14 July 2012 (Le Progrès, 13 July 2012; Le Journal de Saône-et-Loire, 14 July 2012).
It was eventually announced in autumn 2012 that the flag would be
expertized and restored in Vesoul (Le Progrès, 11 November 2012).

The experts from the Royal Institute of Artistic Heritage of Brussels
(Belgium) have confirmed that the flag dates back to the Revolution
period. The experts have analyzed silk threads sampled from the flag
and have authenticated the flag based on the biological origin of the dyes.
The authentication of the flag allowed its registration (at the
regional level) as an historical heritage. Classification (at the
national level) as an historical heritage will be sought.
The restored flag was brought back to Quintigny and presented to the public. The flag was then placed
in an opaque sarcophagus for the sake of conservation (France 3 Franche-Comté, 21 July 2013).

Ivan Sache, 1 August 2013

An unidentified French flag

Unidentified French flag - Image by Ivan Sache, 13 December 2003

A flag labelled le pavillon national (the national flag, or
ensign) is shown on the Jeu de la
Révolution, a variant of the well-known Jeu de l'Oie, the French
version of snakes and ladders. The players shall move along a linear
path made of squares, the numbers of squares moved ahead being given by
a dice thrown alternatively by each player. The first player to reach
the end of the path is the winner. The squares are numbered and
illustrated; for instance, if you reach the "jail" square, you must wait
until another player reaches the same case and frees you, being himself jailed.
In the Jeu de la Révolution, the end of the path is the National
Assembly, with the following legend:Le Bonheur de la France est signé le 14 7bre 1791 par Louis XVI premier
Roi constitutionnel des Français, that is "Good fortune of France was
signed on 14 September 1791 by Louis XVI, the first Constitutional King
of the French".
Case #38 shows the three fleur-de-lis as the national arms. Therefore,
the Jeu de la Révolution game was most probably a propaganda item for
the Constitutional monarchy, which lasted until the overthrowning of
Louis XVI in 1793.
Case#51 shows the enigmatic "national flag" as a square reddish flag
with a canton quartered blue and red by a white cross. The red shade of
the main field seems to be lighter than the red shade of the two red
quarters of the canton, but this might be a printing effect.

Ivan Sache & Thierry Gilabert, 13 December 2003

Bonaparte au Pont d'Arcole, a deliberate
flag error

Historical representations of the Tricolore flag released
after the real events had occurred are often forged. For
instance, the famous propaganda/glorification picture by baron
Antoine Gros Bonaparte au Pont d'Arcole shows Bonaparte
bearing the Tricolore flag when assaulting alone the bridge of
Arcole (near Verona, during the eponymous battle hold on 15-17
November 1796 and won over the Austrians).
The picture was painted some ten years after the battle, and
Bonaparte had became Emperor Napoléon
I. It has been pointed out that Bonaparte in Arcole did not bear
the Tricolore flag, which hardly existed on land at that time,
but the flag of the 5th infantry demi-brigade. Anyway, since this
episode is one of the most characteristic of Napoléon's myth,
it was necessary to associate it with the Tricolore flag later
accepted by the Emperor.
The picture is reproduced on a French post stamp released in 1972
(YT1730, M 72-33), which therefore propagates a deliberate historical
forgery. Bonaparte's uniform was also said to be erroneous in several
details. The whole story can be found in the review Armes et
Uniformes de l'Histoire (March 1973), and is summarized in the
book Le Patrimoine du Timbre-Poste français (Flohic,
1998).

Ivan Sache, 17 October 2000

The Vienna flag riot (1798)

On Bonaparte's proposal, the Directoire appointed in 1798 General Bernadotte Ambassador of France in Vienna
(Austria). On 8 February 1798, Bernadotte
settled in the embassy, located in Palace Caprara Geymuller in
Wallner Street.
On 13 April, around 7 PM, Bernadotte ordered to hoist the French
Tricolor flag on the balcony of his residence. A mob rapidly gathered
in the street and asked the flag to be removed. Heated exchanges
occurred between the mob and the embassy staff gathered on the
balcony. The mob was tediously contained by the guards. Bernadotte
himself, wearing his uniform and the Tricolore cockade, went down
into the street, with sword drawn. The Austrian police arrived and
discussion took place in Bernadotte's office. Bernadotte definitively
refused to take down the flag. In the street, picket lines of cavalry
and infantry attempted to prevent the demonstrators to attack the
embassy. Stones were thrown to the windows. The municipal authorities
mobilized the garrison and the gate of the embassy were locked.
Bernadotte took refuge in the nunciatura, located Am Hof,
in the neighborhood. He sent a protest letter to the Austrian
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and required the surroundings of the
embassy to be cleared. Bernadotte eventually came back to the
embassy, where he was rejoined by Baron von Degelmann, recently
appointed Ambassador of Austria in Paris.
In the meantime, the situation deteriorated: the French flag was
torn down and partially burned. The mob broke down the embassy gate,
broke the windows, dragged out coaches in the street and trashed them
until the police took them away. The ransacking was stopped by the
Austrian army, who settled in the stairs in order to guard
Bernadotte's room. A few shots were exchanged but nobody was harmed.
The calm was restored around 2 PM. Bernadotte, however, did not
calm down. The next morning, he asked his passports at the Hofburg
and refused the mediation of the Court. Instead of leaving Vienna
nightly, as advized by the authorities, he decided to leave on 15
April around noon with five state coaches. He left with all the
honours due to his diplomatic rank and a military escort ensured his
safety on the Austrian territory.
Close to the embassy, the street named Fahnengasse (Flag
Street) still commemorates the incident.

The riot is shown on a plate by Johann Balzer (1738-1799) entitled
"Description of the riot caused by the French embassador Bernadotte
when he hosted the French Tricolor flag in Vienna, 13 April 1798",
kept at the Vienna Historical Museum.
Interestingly, the plate shows a Tricolore flag horizontally
divided. This horizontally divided flag might be an erroneous
representation by Balzer. The French Tricolorz was relatively new
in 1798 and Balzer might not have been an ocular witness of the riot
and might have reconstructed the flag from a vague oral description.
However, it is known that the French Tricolore did not have a
fixed design in the first years after his adoption. It is therefore
highly possible that Balzer showed the flag actually used by
Bernadotte, either seen by himself or correctly reported by a rioter.
From the black and white plate, it is not possible to ascertain which
colour was used for the upper and lower stripes, respectively.
The story is told in great detail and Balzer's plate is shown on
Robert
Ouvrard's website.